Detroit terror attack: pressure grows for full body scanners at British airports

Pressure is growing for full body scanners to be introduced at British
airports after the Dutch Government announced that they are to be used on
all transatlantic flights from Schiphol within three weeks.

Unlike metal detectors currently used at British airports, these scanners can see through clothes and project an image of the passenger's body onto a screen.

But the use of the scanners has been controversial with privacy campaigners and MEPs complaining that their use infringed human rights.

A change in European law would be needed to make their use mandatory at EU airports.

Schiphol's move was announced five days after a Muslim extremist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound jet after changing planes in Amsterdam.

But according reports in the Dutch press a body scanner at Schiphol Airport would not necessarily have detected the explosives which the would-be syringe bomber had sown into his underwear, because al-Qaeda has used its own scanners to practise ways of concealing explosives.

Related Articles

Around 6,900 passengers a day travel to seven American destinations from the airport in Amsterdam, which is one of the busiest in Europe.

Schiphol already has 15 scanners which it has been testing on volunteers taking short haul flights.

The move means that these scanners will be transferred to the departure gates for USA-bound flights as part of the existing trial.

"It may be that we have to buy more," an airport spokesman said.

"These machines can look through clothes and if something is seen, then people are taken for a more thorough manual search."

Details on exactly how the machines are to be deployed will be disclosed within the next few days with the airport waiting for a directive from the Dutch Government.

It is unclear whether the scanners can be made mandatory for all transatlantic passengers and whether it will replace the secondary manual search at the gate.

Full body scanners are currently on trial at Manchester airport. This follows tests of other equipment at other airports in recent years, including Heathrow.

In Britain a final decision on whether to deploy full body scanners, which would cost at least £100,000 each rests with Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, who is advised by TRANSEC, a specialised body within his department.

A spokesman for the BAA, Britain's largest airport operator, said: "The introduction of full body scanners would require a change in European legislation. The European Commission is meeting member states next week, and we will watch the outcome of those discussions closely and respond accordingly."

Meanwhile a spokesman for the Department for Transport said the Government was "urgently assessing" the results of trials which are being conducted at airports and laboratories.

It is understood that the DfT wants to be convinced that the technology is capable of handling thousands of passengers an hour at what is believed to be Europe's busiest transatlantic airport.